Exercise - character development 2 (The Cobbler)

Using the character, Gian Marchetti, I had better developed using Elizabeth George's Character Prompt Sheet from her book Write Away (see last post), I will write a scene now. I also want to add memorable minor characters as suggested by Janet Evanovich in her book How I Write (also noted in last blog).


Squatting, balancing on the balls of his feet, Gian Marchetti stared at the blood caked on the elderly woman's head. By the looks of the crime scene, either she had surprised a burgular, or the burgurlar had surprised her. Marchetti shook his head. Did it really matter how the encounter played out? The woman had bled to death, slowly, for hours.
Marchetti breathed in and out measuredly. He glanced at his partner, Amy Gilroy, who hovered behind his right shoulder. "Anything?"
"Neighbors didn't notice anything unusual." She took a step toward him. "Listen, I know this kind of case brings back--"
"Let's say he hears her coming down those steps." Marchetti nodded toward the stairwell behind Gilroy. "So, he grabs something to hit her with. What would he grab?"
Gilroy sighed. "Nothing here but knick-knacks."
"Okay. He either brought a weapon with him or--"
"Detective Marchetti?" Officer Chapel stepped through the front door.
"What is it, Simon?"
"The victim's son has arrived."
Marchetti stood up. "Good. Maybe we'll get some answers."
As Marchetti walked past Chapel, the young officer smiled. "Careful. Man brought his jockey with him."
Marchetti frowned as he walked toward the door. Gilroy snapped her notepad against Chapel's arm as they followed Marchetti outside.
Drake Hayes, dressed in a tan suit, white shirt buttoned against his neck, and tan tie pinned to his chest with a gold bar, repeatedly drew his hands down his long, narrow face, stopping only when Marchetti approached him. "My mother. When can I see her?"
"Is there somewhere we can talk, Mr. Hayes?"
Hayes' eyes darted around the vicinity, glaning at his mother's house, the neighbors gathered on their front lawns, the police cruisers lined up along the street.
"Go down to the park. There's benches there," said the petite woman beside him.
Marchetti looked at her, taking in her bright orange striped tee-shirt, neon green mini-skirt, and little black riding cap. "You are?"
She stuck out her hand. "Casandra Hayes, but you can call me Cassie." She winked at Marchetti.
"My. . . my wife," Hayes stuttered, pushing his hands deep into his pants pockets.
Marchetti looked down the street. "The park sounds good."
"Go on, take the lead," Cassie pushed her husband, and then, as he turned to walk toward the park, she slipped her right hand down his back, grasping his belt, and turned to wave the others on with her left hand.
Gilroy looked at Marchetti with raised eyebrows, but he just followed the couple down the street.
After Cassie had positioned her husband onto a bench, she turned to Marchetti. "I'm surprised anyone could get into that house. Sadie kept that place wrapped up tighter than a pig in a blanket." She nudged Drake. "Go on, tell them."
Drake looked at Marchetti, but then his gaze wandered.
"Your mother keep anything valuable in the house, Mr. Hayes?" the detective asked.
"Phew!" Cassie crossed her arms. "She dropped all her dimes on the slow boat to chinaware. Tell him, Drake."
"Why don't you go over to that bench with Detective Gilroy, Mrs. Hayes?" Marchetti pointed across the park.
"Oh, I get it. Divide and conquer." Cassie Hayes pursed her lips into an exaggerated pout.
"Standard procedure," Marchetti said.
"Besides," Gilroy stepped forward, "sometimes a little girl-talk reveals more information."
Cassie seemed to consider Gilroy's words. "True enough. Talking to men is like spreading mayonnaise on milquetoast." She stood, sashaying by Marchetti before turning back to her husband. "You'll be fine. I'm just going over here with the nice lady detective."
Marchetti watched Hayes as the husband followed his wife's perky gait across the park with dull eyes. "You have a close relationship with your mother, Mr. Hayes?"
The soft brown eyes abandoned his wife and turned to Marchetti. "Decorous. We had a mother-son relationship, don't you see?" His voice had dropped to a near-whisper.
"When did you last see your mother?"
"Coffee. Two days ago. Liked to sit by the table in the backyard, she did." He looked at his hands in his lap.
"She mention anything unusual?"
Hayes tought for a moment. "Just so. The trellis. It had toppled over. Some of the lattice was broken." He shrugged. "Dogs, I guess."
Marchetti ground his teeth. "Did you fix the trellis for her?"
Hayes frowned. "No. Why?"
"It doesn't appear to be broken now."
Hayes nodded. "Just so. My mother had a handyman."
"I'll need his name."
"I don't know. One of the neighbors, you see." His shoulders tipped forward.
"You never asked your mother who was helping her out?" Marchetti curled his fingers into fists. He closed his eyes for a moment, gathering control.
Hayes' body seemed to shrink, along with his energy. "Private, she was. Hmm, I dare say I never thought it was important. She took care of her own business, don't you see? Independent. Just so."
Marchetti gazed across the park at Cassie Hayes, talking animately with Amy Gilroy. He looked away and expelled the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. . . . . .


I find that I use dialogue to create character, which is interesting to me because when I wrote as a child and as a teenager, I loved to write description. I created whole worlds with intricate details and characters were depicted from mole to tattoo to jacket to hairstyle. Yet I am certain, plot was very lacking. Perhaps, now I simply want to get right into the story and hope that the character emerges from it.

About a year ago, I wrote a story that is really all about a character "developing" himself. He's trying to figure out how he fits in the world. I think I wanted the reader to also keep thinking about just who the character is and how he fits in. It remains one of my stories that I'm not quite sure if it is a charcter sketch awaiting a story, or a story of its own.

***



The Cobbler




Damon slouched through the alleys, a shadow moving in the dark. Rats scurried away at his approach, the moon glinting from startled eyes. He moved with ease here. Yet, he wanted to thrive beyond these fetid lanes. He just had to find a way to feel a part of the streets, a connection to the people.
Tonight, he decided. Tonight he would concentrate, and learn.
As he approached the neon-lit main avenue, Damon pulled up his black hood, allowing the thick black cotton to flank his face. He moved quickly now, a stallion honing in on the finish line.
There were mobs of them on the sidewalk. They banged on the plate glass and cursed. Damon snaked through the throng, keeping his head covered, his secret hidden, and then used his key to unlock the door.
The man hovered in the corner under the "Adults Only" sign, his meaty fingers testing the connections of wires at the backs of the machines. Damon paused, nostrils flared, breathing in deeply the scents of grease and sweat, of machine and flesh.
"You're late," the man said.
Damon shifted past him, hooking his stiff fingers in the metal loop in the stained carpeting, delighting as his fingernails scraped a fresh gum wad squashed into the dark blue fibers. He lifted the ring and then yanked the trap door upward. He descended into the unlit pit.
His movements fluid again, Damon discarded hood and knit cap as he slipped around the metal poles to the black leather chair, gathering the suspended cables that drifted around it.
His murky pupils wandered toward the cobwebbed ceiling as he tugged on the wires to test their connections. The man was sloppy, Damon knew, despite his great show of care. Still, the cables held, and Damon began the process of gently grooming them. Afterall, this was his only connection to the people above.
One by one, he eyed the frayed ends, licking some into fine points. One by one, he threaded them into the sockets in his head.
Instantly, Damon's senses came alive. His neurons hummed, his vessels throbbed. Eyes wide yet unseeing, he settled back into his chair. A smile crept along his chin.
Damon allowed his cognizance to seep into every corner of all three realities booting his brain. The humans pushing through the door upstairs called those realities games and they gathered here at Ze Game Haus to stand before the machines, legs slightly spread in a stiff-kneed stance, gazes fixed upon the glowing screen, one hand gripping the joy stick, the other hand hovering over the buttons. They thought they were in control of the games. A wet smile oozed from Damon's mouth as saliva dripped unto his black shirt. The humans could believe what they wanted to believe.
Damon's thoughts skittered over the brick walls, stone paths, and brutal halberds. His perceptions hovered over the spiked treetops, frozen waters, and sharp blades. His awareness lurked in the dirty gutters, the dingy pubs, and the dark closets.
These were his realities. True, the machines above him held them during the hours Damon was forced to wander the human world, but the realities waited for him to awaken them, to give them vibrancy and purpose. Only when Damon inserted those cables into the holes in his skull, only when the electrical pulses of his brain traveled along those cables and then into the machines, animating the realities within, did the games exist. Without Damon, the games were but bits of images, pieces of action. Damon was the cobbler who worked the metal of the machine, who dyed the fabric of the game.
And he was connected to the people.
His muscles tensed. He was ready.
"Gorum!" The energy spiked into his consciousness.
Damon's focus fixed briefly onto the being stomping along the frozen river of one recess of his mind, but then quickly flicked away as another energy bolt seared its way into his presence. Jack the Hack reached out a luminous hand to pull aside the grimy lace and peer out the beckoning window A woman approached, hurrying along the dark street beyond the flickering glass. Jack the Hack reached into his pocket. Damon smiled, flicking a switchblade into Jack's hand. Jack stepped swiftly to the door.
Damon's muscles tensed more. The fun was about to begin.
Gorum abruptly jerked on his cerebration. A deer had appeared out of the brush, hesitating on the frozen landscape. Damon gleefully materialized the bowie knife, but the fool standing at the machine above Damon pushed buttons demanding the spear. Damon relented, returning his attention to Jack, the switchblade, and the target stumbling past the open door. Jack stepped out onto the cobblestone street behind her, and Damon tasted blood.
The blade was sharp, the radiant hand sure and quick. Damon drooled. He knew this hand, this player. Standing right above him, feet planted on the gum encrusted blue carpeting, stood a master. Damon was a part of his world.
Damon salivated, the spittle exuding from his mouth. He had balked at releasing his power into the hands of oafs who pumped coins into the machines as if that gave them the authority to tell Damon what to do. The man had told him things had to be this way for a while, until the players were hooked. Damon had relented. He would wait. He had not expected the few players, the cutthroats and connivers, who could dominate the scenes. They gave Damon pleasures he felt to his core.
Gorum approached the fallen deer. His ruddy hand reached out to grasp the spear. Damon misdirected it, thrusting it into the gaping wound, forcing it to grip the fur and flesh, to tear it away from the bone. A rush of heat plowed through Damon. Vaguely, he was aware of shouts above him, and then Gorum withered away. The player had terminated.
The man would be angry. Damon no longer cared.


Three AM. The requisite hour had passed since closing, but the energy still pulsated inside his head, his synapses sparked and throbbed. The evening had been one of the best, yet one of the worst. The players had risen to the challenge, and had pushed for more.
Above him, as Damon sweat and drooled in the dank basement, fists had pounded the machine's buttons, had yanked on the joysticks. The players' shouts had been loud enough to penetrate Damon's concentration and shake his focus. He had at once been truly alive and ashamed. Interacting with the humans, yet only an image.
Walking through the silent real world, Damon considered the last challengers to grip the handles and punch the buttons. Gorum had gleefully accepted the knives Damon had placed in his hands, had reveled in thrusting his redolent hands into the hot flesh, leaving entrails across the snowpack. Savage and beast clashed, vanquishing and mutilating each other and Damon's limbic system. He had hyperventilated, squirmed, trembled, and wept. Even now, sweat brimmed Damon's brow as he shivered at the memory.
Brick walls had tumbled, crushing enemies and pulsating through Damon. The player at the machine above him had chosen the battering ram again and again. Crushing, pulverizing, obliterating while Damon's arteries burned and his fists clenched in frustration. A joyful lust, a bitter hunger for something more, something better, lingered still in Damon's gut.
Again and again, Jack approached victims with stealth and cunning, and then overpowered each with swift precision, igniting Damon's hypothalamus, battering his heart. The final player, the ultimate Jack, had jumped at every opportunity, had demanded even more, grabbing every door handle, jerking every window, thrusting his blade into each dark corner. Damon gnawed at his lips and scratched his cheeks in frustration and shame.

The man always said he would never be accepted into the world of people because he did not understand flesh and blood. The man told him to keep his head covered, his eyes down when moving through their world. "You ain't connected to humans that way, only this way." The fat fingers had tugged on the wires connecting Damon to the machines.
But, perhaps these players were humans that would accept Damon, maybe they would share their world with him. But not until he had met their challenge. Not until he had satisfied their hunger.
Damon ground his teeth, dug his nails into his flesh.
Laughter trickled down the greasy alley pavement. Damon froze. At the far end, he could see two figures beneath a neon sign. One leaned back against the brick wall, her bare leg almost glowing in the light. The other stood close to her, his arm extended, palm pressing against the brick.
Damon slid into the dark corner of two attached buildings and lurked there, watching. He pulled his hood closer around his visage. The laughter vibrated along the wall, jabbing every neuron inside Damon's skull.
Suddenly, the pole ax flashed before him. Damon's muscles tensed, and he pressed his back against the brick, closed his eyes, and concentrated on breathing. His nostrils flared as he sucked in the scents of garbage and sewers. He heard wooden wheels rattle over cobblestones, the snaps of whips and the whines of horses. No, no. This was not the world he walked in. This was the one that occupied his brain every night in the dank basement beneath Ze Game Haus. With shaking hands, he pulled the hood further still over his face.
"Oh, Baby," the woman moaned.
Damon's eyes opened, and he gazed upon the floe of ice before him. He crouched, listening to the grunt of animals, his hands searching around him for weapons. As his fingers gripped a broken bottle, the world inside his brain fizzled away and Damon's eyes focused on the drainpipe attached the building opposite him. He thrust himself back against the wall.
Footsteps approached, and he watched as a woman in a long dress with a dark cape walked by him. He searched his pocket for the garrote, and finding his pocket empty, realized she had vanished into the air.
"Oh, God. Oh God!" The man down the alley shouted.
Damon shook his head. The woman in the long dress had not been real. The ice did not exist. There were no wooden wagon wheels. Somehow, his brain had conjured up visions from the games. This had never happened before. He shook his head again, trying to dislodge them.
"Where's my money?" the woman asked.
Her voice echoed from behind the brick wall. Ice covered the cobblestone path that snaked along the wall. A massive grizzly bear stood along the path, its breath rank fumes misting the air. Damon shook his head. Cobbled together, the three scenarios of his brain flourished despite their disconnect from their machines.
Damon sensed the three final players staring at him, touching him, pressing upon him. He heard their distant cries, felt their pounding and shaking. He comprehended their demands for more options, bigger challenges, superior actions.
Damon considered researching their world to better understand their desires, to more fully comprehend their needs. Perhaps this human world could provide input for greater vibrancy. Maybe the human world could provide Damon with a game of his own; a game that would bring him fully into their world. He would be a part of the people, a part of reality.
"Oh, yeah." The woman walked toward him counting paper money, smiling.
Damon stepped out of the shadows, ready to garner more information, download more experience, input more knowledge. He followed her out into the main street, peopled with late-night revelers, delivery men, and paperboys. He prepared to expand his capabilities.
Jack struck first and Gorum dawdled longer than necessary.
Covered in blood, Damon stood and looked around the players' world. He was anxious for the games to begin again. Smiling, he bared his head and slowly walked toward the main avenue.

***

I really do write mostly "detective" mysteries. I don't know where I sometimes get these creepy ideas . . . I always blame my husband. He understands that taking blame for things is his job.

Here are the sites for the two writers I have talked about recently.

www.elizabethgeorgeonline.com
www.evanovich.com